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Using permaculture ethics and design principles to transform an old energy guzzling bungalow into a showcase of sustainable design. It's about energy cycling, building community, self-reliance, creatively using and reusing materials... without spending heaps of money.

Storage feature in Owner Builder mag

We are once again in Owner Builder magazine, this time with a focus on storage solutions. For those of you who have come to this blog via the magazine I've included a few links to expand on the info in the article.

Popular posts from this blog

I'm one for trying out different things, and I like to see what we can get away with before committing to something bigger and 'better'. Fridges and freezers are one of the biggest energy consumers in the household - usually behind heating / cooling and hot water systems.

We've trialed a number of fridge systems here before settling on the upright freezer conversion.First we used an old 150lt bar fridge that used around 670Wh per dayThen we bought a 150lt chest freezer (using around 466Wh per day) for preserving bulk food - with the idea of a possible conversion.Our bar fridge died two weeks later so we used ice from our freezer to create a 'ice box bar fridge'We then tried a smaller old Engel fridge (about 50lt) that I had in the Kombi that used about 420Wh per day.
After not being entirely satisfied with any of the above I finally decided to try out what I always wanted to and convert a freezer to a fridge. I…

I collected a large pile of concrete which had been sitting out the front for a number of years. It had become habitat for snails mainly. Originally the concrete blocks were footpaths from around the original house, so they hadn't traveled far. This material is more commonly known as 'urbanite', and is used in some pretty creative ways.
I've been thinking about creating a space for an outdoor kitchen for some time now, and figured that I really needed a paved area in between the shed and cellar to set it up. The urbanite seemed like the perfect answer, allowing me to clean up around the front and create a great space round the back.
My mate Dylan suggested that I make up a form and mortar mix to set the concrete block pieces onto. Seemed like a good idea to me, so after thinking about it for a few months and with summer just about to start, I decided to get stuck into it.

Using corrugated iron as a ceiling lining is a bit unusual. We used it because: we like the effect, it's quick and easy to install, it can be reused or recycled, requires no painting and has a very long low maintenance life. It took two days to install, with three of us on the first day and four on the second. The sheets in the living room were 7.2m long and required props to help hold in place while it was being fixed.
Because there is no more room in the ceiling space I installed wiring for a future (possible) solar PV system - allowing the wiring to be concealed. The 2 x 4mm SDI cable was fitted into conduit to protect it from vermin, should they find their way into the ceiling (hope not). It would have been good to have made larger box beams (400mm instead of 300mm wide) to allow for larger air cavity.
Two layers of R2.5 polyester batts (the most we could fit) were installed into the ceiling cavity as we attached the corrugated iron ceili…